Turning a public catering facility into a whole food kitchen is easier than you think. It's much easier to adopt than you might think, and there's no difficulty in staying within budget.

As an example, I will show you a kitchen for 900 people that I converted in a year and a half in a home for psychiatric patients in Szentgotthárd, Hungary.

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The initial situation

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• The kitchen used powders. Soups, stews and any other dishes for which there was a Knorr or Maggi powder were made with them.

• The amount of vegetables in soups was minimal, specifically 100 portions contained 7-8 kg of vegetables.

• Relatively little milk and dairy products were used, which was only a problem because the OETI (National Institute of Food Science) specifications were considerably higher.

• 18 tonnes of sugar were consumed per year.

• Fruit was scarce.

• Only products made from refined flour were used, no wholemeal cereals at all.

• Cooking was done with refined oils, butter was non-existent.

• There was meat at almost every meal, cold cuts and sausages in the evening and in the morning.

• Lots of ready-made products, tinned meat products, cheese, pastries, sweets, lots of inefficient, polluting mini-packaging.

• Both residents and staff complained of digestive problems, clearly the result of an unhealthy diet
   

What has changed

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The most difficult part of the challenge was how to turn a very unhealthy kitchen into a healthy one that everyone would accept. To achieve this, we resorted to the very simple trick of introducing changes in such a way that they were as invisible as possible. Changes introduced in very small steps are much more acceptable than trying to change everything all at once.

 

• The staff of the institute, the kitchen staff and the residents all took part in a series of presentations and discussions.

• The recipe was rewritten, following the principle of gradualism. A multi-year plan was drawn up to introduce new ingredients and foods.

• We threw out all the flavour enhancing powders, semi-finished and finished products that were lined up in five kilo boxes.

• In one year, we reduced meat by 25% overall, but increased fresh vegetables by 55% and fresh fruit by 62%.

• We introduced wholemeal organic cereals and a few other organic products that we could afford

• The institute bought a mill to make wholemeal flour.

• The amount of sugar, which was 18 t in a psychiatric institute(!), was reduced by a third in a year.

• We introduced a winter and summer menu.

• We launched a vegetarian menu.

• We asked for monthly feedback from residents and staff
   

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To sum up...

 

It is possible to adapt public catering, whether it is a nursery, a school or a social institution, in accordance with existing regulations, so that it is healthy, tasty, aesthetic, nutritious and tasty for children and adults alike.

And all within the budget of the institution.

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Comment from the OETI

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The then Director-General of the National Institute of Food Science (OÉTI) and his staff were invited to present our findings after the restructuring. In their report they wrote the following:

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"We consider it essential to communicate the results as widely as possible, as the exemplary work is a good practice that many others can follow and emulate".